Programs help ease crowding in jails

November 26, 2001|By Amanda Vogt, Tribune staff reporter.

Instead of spending their nights in jail, dozens of convicts sentenced to Lake County's popular work-release program are being sent home, where they can come and go as they please while they wait for a cell.

For many convicted of non-violent crimes, it often takes three months from the time a judge imposes a sentence until a bed becomes available in the Lake County Jail's work-release center in Waukegan.

With the 110 beds at the center full, 150 would-be inmates are sleeping at home while they wait their turn to serve their time.

The waiting list is a product of the popularity of alternative programs as jails and prison are overcrowding, officials say.

"These programs provide judges with very attractive alternatives to incarceration," said Jane Waller, chief judge of the 19th Judicial Circuit of Lake and McHenry Counties. "Even an expanded work-release program will fill up in the blink of an eye."

Lake County's program is similar to others nationwide that divert convicts from round-the-clock incarceration. The programs give non-violent convicts an opportunity to keep their jobs; attend anger management or parenting classes; or participate in court-ordered substance abuse and GED programs.

Lake County Sheriff Gary Del Re said he is planning to expand the work-release program and also is considering additional diversion programs, including electronic home monitoring.

"The cost of jail construction is prohibitively expensive," Del Re said. "The rate of recidivism has forced us to find ways to modify criminal behavior and be creative in formulating alternatives to incarceration."

Major crime has declined in the U.S. for almost a decade, yet the prison and jail populations have steadily increased due to stiffer sentences and recidivism, with roughly 60 percent of inmates committing another crime after being released, officials said.

Overcrowding in state prisons across the country has contributed to crowding in local jails. Waller said Lake County has been forced to hold prison-bound inmates in jail until a prison cell becomes available.

"That, combined with the need to keep some jail and work-release beds available for the general population, has backed up the system all the way down the line," Waller said.

For inmates like Dan Peceny, crowding has meant a waiting period before a jail sentence can be served.

Peceny, 22, of west suburban Countryside, was sentenced in December 1999 to 30 months of work release after pleading guilty to reckless homicide. He had killed a man while driving drunk near the Wisconsin border in Lake County.

Peceny had to wait until February 2000 to begin serving his sentence.

Each weekday, Peceny punches a time card and departs the jail to take a train to Glenview, where he works as an apprentice electrician.

After work, he travels to Lisle, where he takes electrician certification classes. At the end of the day, Peceny returns to the Lake County Jail, where he spends the night.

"If I had been sentenced to jail, where would I be education-wise? And how would [jail] look to future employers?" Peceny said. Work-release incarceration, he said, "gave me a lot of time to think and find out where my life went wrong."

In recent years there has been increasing emphasis on "rehabilitation for offenders who have proven less a risk to society," said Lake County Jail Director Charles DeFilippo. "To allow them to pay their dues while supporting their families is more cost-effective than locking them up."

In Cook and DuPage Counties, the jails supplement work-release programs with other alternatives that keep convicts out of jail completely. Neither county's jail is operating above capacity, officials said.

The Sheriff's Work Alternative Program, also known as SWAP, has been used in both counties for years. It allows people convicted of non-violent crimes--mostly drug- or traffic-related--to complete their court-ordered sentences while living at home, officials said.

Those who are sentenced to SWAP report to the jail campus, where sheriff's vans transport them to county-provided jobs, said DuPage County Jail chief John Smith.

"These programs focus on diverting non-violent offenders who are entering the system usually for the first time," Smith said. "We help them acquire life skills so that they don't re-enter the system."

Lake County officials are considering adding total diversion programs to the jail's repertoire, DeFilippo said.

"We're looking into a satellite tracking system that would allows us to track offenders outside the jail," DeFilippo said.

Waller said she and her colleagues would welcome additional alternative programs.

"We are very supportive of programs that allow offenders to make restitution to society in a meaningful way," Waller said.